RESTRICTED  WORLD TRADE  
ORGANIZATION  TN/IP/M/15  
20 February 2006 
 
 (06-0713) 
Council for Trade-Related Aspects 
of Intellectual Property Rights Special Session  
 
  
MINUTES OF MEETING 
 
Held in the Centre William Rappard
 
on 27 October 2005  
 
Chairperson:  Ambassador M anzoor Ahmad (Pakistan) 
 
Subjects discussed  Page nos.  
A. ADOPTION OF AGENDA ...............................................................................................................1  
B. NEGOTIATION ON THE ESTABLISHMENT OF A MULTILATERAL SYSTEM OF 
NOTIFICATION AND REGISTRATION OF GEOGRAPHICAL INDICATIONS FOR WINES 
AND SPIRITS ............................................................................................................................... .1 
C. OTHER ISSUES ...........................................................................................................................20  
 
_______________ 
  A. A
DOPTION OF AGENDA  
1. The fifteenth Special Session agreed to a dopt the agenda as set out in WTO/AIR/2694. 
2. The Chairman suggested that the Special Session invite the International Bureau of WIPO to 
be represented in an expert capacity, this being wit hout prejudice to the issue of observer status for 
intergovernmental organizations. 
3. It was so agreed. 
B. NEGOTIATION ON THE ESTABLISHMENT OF A MULTILATERAL SYSTEM OF NOTIFICATION AND 
REGISTRATION OF GEOGRAPHICAL INDICATIONS FOR WINES AND SPIRITS  
4. The Chairman  recalled that at its meeting of 16 Se ptember 2005 the Special Session had had a 
detailed and useful discussion on the three proposals on the table that had been presented side-by-side in a document prepared by the Secretariat (TN/IP/W /12).  He suggested that delegations first deal 
with the headings that had not been addressed at the September meeting due to time constraints, and 
then revert, if they so wished, to those already ad dressed at that meeting.  He further suggested that 
the remaining headings be grouped into three sets, namely: (1) duration and re newals of registrations, 
modifications and withdrawals of notifications and registrations, and terminat ion of participation in 
the system;  (2) fees and costs;  and (3) review, contact point, administering body/other bodies, and 
date of entry into operation.  He recalled that cer tain issues in these sets of headings, such as fees and 
costs and the administering body and other bodies, ha d been touched upon by so me delegations at the 
September meeting. TN/IP/M/15 
Page 2  
 
5. It was so agreed
. 
Continuation of the discussion of the proposals set out side-by-side in TN/IP/W/12  
 - Duration and renewals of registrations;  m odifications and withdrawals of notifications 
and registrations;  termination of participation in the system 
 
6. The representative of Argentina  said that she did not have any specific comments on the issue 
of duration and renewals of registrations but wish ed to comment on both the issue of modifications 
and withdrawals of notifications and registrations a nd the issue of termination of participation in the 
system.  The joint proposal provided for a simple, clear and transparent mechanism for modifications 
and withdrawals of notifications to the WTO Secretariat, acting as the system's administering body.  
In contrast, the EC proposal was not clear on the issue of withdrawals.  For example, the second 
sentence of paragraph 8.1 of the EC proposal provi ded that, if the geographical indication ceased to 
fulfil the conditions for protection, the notifying Me mber should withdraw the relevant notification.  
There was no provision in the EC proposal to cove r a case where a notifying Member did not make 
any notification of withdrawal.  If, for example, a geographical indication had fallen into disuse or 
was no longer protected in its country of origin, what  would happen if that Member did not make such 
notification?  She raised this concern with the strong legal effects of the EC proposal in mind.  Such a 
situation could be damaging to producers in third co untries since it could creat e great uncertainty.  For 
example, if a notified geographical indication was withdrawn after a year because it had fallen into 
disuse, what would happen with the losses that pr oducers of third countries had incurred during that 
period due to the legal effects produced by that noti fication, i.e. the prohibition to use that name or 
register it as a trademark?  This showed that, as regards legal effects, the EC proposal would create 
uncertainties.   
7. Regarding the termination of pa rticipation in the system, she said that the joint proposal was 
quite clear and transparent.  Unde r paragraph 9 of the proposal, a Member could simply notify when it 
no longer wished to participate in the system.  In contrast, paragraph 13 of the EC proposal only had 
the words "[w]ithdrawals from the system" in br ackets.  Members needed to know whether the 
withdrawal from the system was, or was not, provid ed for in the EC proposal.  In any case, given the 
legal effects of the EC system on participating and non-participating Members, Members needed to 
know exactly what the content of para graph 13 of the EC proposal would be. 
8. The representative of the European Communities , commenting on the Hong Kong, China 
proposal regarding the duration of protection, said that, since the TRIPS Agreement was silent as to 
the duration of GI protection, his delegation w ondered whether such a time-limit would be in 
conformity with the Agreement. 
9. He further said that, because under the EC pr oposal even non-participating Members would 
have some legal obligations, providing for the termina tion of participation would not fit in the concept 
of a "multilateral system" as understood by the European Communities.  
10. Responding to Argentina regarding the operation of Article 24.9 of the TRIPS Agreement as 
set out in paragraph 8.1 of the EC proposal, he said that, assuming that the EC proposal was annexed to the TRIPS Agreement, there would be a violatio n of the Agreement if a Member did not make a 
notification of withdrawal under that provision.  There would be an obligation for each Member to notify that a geographical indication had ceased to be protected in that Member.  The effects of this 
withdrawal for producers from third countries would depend on each country.  He said that it was not 
unusual in intellectual property law that, for exampl e, a trademark lapsed af ter some time, and that 
countries dealt with this situation in different ways.  Likewise, it would be for each WTO Member's legal system to decide what would happen in a si milar situation regarding geographical indications.  
In particular, this would depend on how Members had implemented Article 24.9 of the TN/IP/M/15 
Page 3 
 
 
TRIPS Agreement, which allowed, but did not oblig e, them not to protect a geographical indication 
that was not protected in the country of origin .  Members were therefore still free to continue 
protecting that particular geographical indication even  if it was no longer protected in the country of 
origin.  For these reasons it was difficult to give  a definitive answer to the question posed by 
Argentina because the provisions of the TRIPS Agreement were fairly flexible as far as 
implementation was concerned.   
11. He further said that, while it was true that the EC proposal did not contain any language 
regarding withdrawals from the system, his delegati on would be ready to suggest some language.  In 
any event, he wanted to state fo r the record that for his delegation, withdrawing from the system 
would only mean changing from the status of a part icipating Member to a non-participating Member, 
unless that Member became a LDC and hence was unde r the benefit of the extended transition period, 
or if it left the WTO. 
12. The representative of Hong Kong, China , responding to the representative of the 
European Communities on the duration of protection,  said that paragraph C.1 of his delegation's 
proposal was aimed at keeping the register up to da te.  If details concerning a geographical indication 
had not changed, the renewal woul d be automatic, subject to the payment of the required fees.  
Furthermore, the proposal did not impose any limitation on the number of renewals. 
13. The representative of Chile  said that he did not oppose the approach taken by 
Hong Kong, China on the duration of registrations, a lthough it was true that the TRIPS Agreement did 
not have any time limits for geographical indica tions.  He recalled that other provisions of the 
TRIPS Agreement provided for a minimum duration of protection.  For example, Article 26.3 of the 
Agreement provided for a minimum period of ten year s for industrial designs.  Members were free to 
go beyond that period and to determine the mode of  computing this period, for example to break it 
into different renewable terms. 
14. The representative of th e European Communities  said that the fact that the TRIPS Agreement 
had established terms of protection for certain inte llectual property rights only, such as trademarks, 
and not for geographical indications, had some meani ng.  If the negotiators had wished for a term of 
protection in the area of geographical indications, they would have negotiated a specific provision in 
the text of the Agreement. 
15. The representative of the United States  said that the clarification made by the representative 
of the European Communities regarding withdrawals fro m the system was troubling.  It illustrated a 
fundamental difference between the joint proposal  and the EC proposal regarding the understanding 
of "participation".  For those Members that were  producers of neither wines nor spirits, what the 
European Communities had said in this meeting should leave no doubt about which proposal to avoid.  The EC proposal appeared to be outside the mandate  of Article 23.4 of the TRIPS Agreement since it 
would deprive the reference to "those Members partic ipating in the system" of any meaning.  More 
fundamentally, his delegation faile d to understand the benefits of being a non-participating Member 
under the EC system.  It would appear instead that the result would be substantial costs for 
examination, protection and litigation with respect to  registered geographical indications but with no 
corresponding benefits.  Members should focus on th e joint proposal, which contained a very clear 
and transparent process with respect to both modifica tions and withdrawals of particular geographical 
indications.  Similarly, with respect to the terminatio n of participation, in striking contrast to the EC 
proposal, the joint proposal, in line with its fu ndamental principles and Article 23.4 of the 
TRIPS Agreement, foresaw a truly voluntary system in which some Members would be able to 
choose to participate.  Participating Members would also be able to voluntar ily choose to no longer 
participate even though they could have made notifications at an earlier time. 
 TN/IP/M/15 
Page 4  
 
16. The representative of Australia
 said that his delegation shared the concerns voiced by 
Argentina, Chile and the United States.  He  did not quite understand the reply of the 
European Communities to the question of what would happen, particularly to third countries, when a 
geographical indication had fallen into disuse in its country of origin and no notification of 
withdrawal of that term had been made.  As had been indicated by other delegations, the concerns 
expressed were due to the fundamental question of  legal effects imposed by the EC proposal on 
participating and non-participating Members.  He felt particularly concerned by the comment made by 
the EC that all WTO Members would have to assu me some onerous and bur densome obligations if 
the system were to be truly multilateral and not plur ilateral.  His delegation reiterated the view it had 
expressed in previous meetings:  there was curre ntly in place in the WTO a system that was 
multilateral and which did not necessitate the particip ation of all WTO Members, namely the Code of 
Good Practice of the TBT Agreement.   
17. In response to the statements made by the United States and Australia, the representative of 
the European Communities  said that the aim of the EC proposal was to establish a system that would 
improve the market access conditions in third count ries.  While his delegation remained open to any 
other proposal that went in this direction, it had serious doubts regarding the possible benefits of the 
joint proposal.  
18. Responding to a question posed by Chinese Taipei , the representative of Hong Kong, China  
said that under its proposal a Member would be able to  terminate its participation in the system at any 
time. 
19. The representative of Argentina  said that what the TRIPS Agreement had mandated to be 
negotiated was a system that would facilitate th e protection of geographical indications and not 
increase it.  In this regard, she said that the Eu ropean Communities had made a valid point regarding 
Hong Kong, China's proposal for a ten-year time-lim it for registered geographical indications.  This 
would be a limitation to protection that was not for eseen in the TRIPS Agreement.  Like other aspects 
of the EC proposal, this feature proposed by Hong Kong, China was a point of concern. 
 - Fees and costs 
20. The representative of the European Communities  said that the EC proposal, inspired by the 
Madrid Protocol, addressed the issues of how to fi nance the register by essentially placing the cost of 
the system on the notifying Member.  The proposal was based on the principle, endorsed on numerous 
occasions by the European Communities, that the cost of the system should be borne proportionally by the countries that benefit most from it.  Th e EC proposal allowed WTO Members to recoup the 
costs incurred in complying with the obligations re garding trademarks through a system of fees to be 
paid by the notifying WTO Member.  The mechanis m proposed in paragraph 9.4 et seq. of the EC 
proposal was self-explanatory and largely inspired by the existing system embodied in the 
Madrid Protocol.  It divided the fees into:  (1) a basic fee to cover the administrative and functioning 
costs of the system, including the setting up costs, an d (2) an individual fee to cover the obligation to 
monitor past or future trademarks.  Members shoul d notify to the WTO the costs associated with the 
functioning of this system.  The WTO Secretariat, the International Bureau of WIPO or whichever 
body the WTO membership agreed to, should be th e managing body.  It would be in charge of 
establishing the fees on the basis of WTO Members' c ontributions.  It would fix the relevant fees, 
would collect those fees from the notifying Members and redistribute them to the relevant WTO Members, following the well-known model of the Madrid  Protocol.  His delegation believed that this 
proposal would strike the balance and bring comfort to those that have voiced concerns on the issue of cost.  The proposed system would permit all WTO Me mbers to be involved, either as participant or 
non-participant Members, without burdening their administrations.  Many administrations would see 
this system as an opportunity to optimize existing GI  registration systems that had been little used to 
date and to recoup certain costs which they might have incurred in putting such systems into place. TN/IP/M/15 
Page 5 
 
 
21. The representative of Australia  said that there were no provisions on fees and costs in the joint 
proposal because the system proposed did not place any significant administrative and legal burdens 
on participating Members, let alone on non-participating ones.  The core  part of the joint proposal was 
a free searchable database of all geographical indicat ions for wines and spirits that were notified by 
participating Members.  She noted that the Eur opean Communities had attempted to address the issue 
of costs through the inclusion of a fee mechanism to  finance the system.  Although costs needed to be 
addressed, there was still some misunderstanding as to the idea that the EC proposal was somehow a 
"one-stop shop" which would be cheaper than existing domestic systems.  Her delegation's 
understanding was that under the EC proposal each  patent and trademark office could charge an 
individual fee to cover its examination costs, in a ddition to a basic fee.  Paragraph 9.8 of the EC 
proposal provided that the WTO Members would have to notify the national component of the 
individual fee which it wished to receive, an am ount which could be charge d later but could not be 
higher than the equivalent of the amount that the relevant administration of the WTO Member would 
be entitled to receive from a national applicant in th e framework of a domestic procedure, where such 
an individual fee was payable.  This meant that the fees could not be more than , but could at least be 
the same as, existing fees under current domestic proce dures.  It was therefore not clear what the cost-
saving element would actually be as compared, for example, to applying for a certification mark in a Member under existing systems.  In fact, the cost s incurred under the EC proposed fee system could 
be higher because of the obligation to pay an individual  fee in addition to the basic fee.  At least under 
current domestic systems Members would only seek protection in markets where they actually sold 
their products.  She further noted that there were many other costs associat ed with the EC proposal 
that would not be recoverable by the proposed f ee mechanism.  For example, Members would be 
required to implement new regimes for the protectio n of geographical indications, which would not be 
a simple task for many Members that were curre ntly protecting geographical indications through 
unfair competition or trademark systems.  Mo reover, under the EC proposal Members who had 
chosen not to participate would still have to lodge reservations and enter into compulsory negotiations 
in order to retain their rights to use existing excep tions.  Who would pay for the costs associated with 
these obligations?   
22. The representative of New Zealand
 associated her delegation with Australia's comments on 
the EC proposed fee system.  Unlike the EC proposal , the joint proposal was the lowest cost option on 
the table:  it provided minimal costs for t hose participating Members and no costs for non-
participating Members.  Her delegation appreciated  the European Communiti es' acceptance that the 
cost generated by their system should be supported largely by those participating Members that had 
notified geographical indications into the system .  With regard to the point made by the 
European Communities that the proposed system of fees would allow WTO Members to recoup the 
costs incurred in complying with th e obligations regarding trademarks, she said that the real cost of 
the EC system would be much greater than those re lated to trademarks, for there would be costs to 
consumers, producers and governments to be taken into account.  It was clear that the EC proposal 
would require a level of monitoring and administra tion, including an order to lodge reservations, 
which would seriously stretch the bureaucracy of  even a developed country Member such as 
New Zealand, which had a small IP Office.  This would be an even more serious problem for small 
developing countries with smaller IP offices.  She wondered whether these countries would have the 
infrastructure necessary to ca rry out such tasks.   
23. She agreed with the comments  made by Australia and Malaysia at the March 2005 meeting 
that the "user-pays principle" should apply equally to the overall administration of a system, including the handling of oppositions.  She wondered whether no tifying Members would be prepared to take on 
any new costs arising at the national level for othe r WTO Members.  In fact, the EC proposal required 
Members' governments to essentially sign an enormous  blank cheque for both participating and non-
participating Members, which woul d be required to monitor all registered geographical indications 
and decide whether or not to lodge a reservation.  They would have two alternatives:  to accept a 
geographical indication without reservation, thus co mmitting to new obligations such as the constant 
monitoring of all geographical indications registered against nationally registered trademarks and, at TN/IP/M/15 
Page 6  
 
the same time, losing certain existing rights and flexibilities embodied in Article 24 of the 
TRIPS Agreement;  or, to lodge a reservation, thus  committing to a series of bilateral negotiations.  
These alternatives, which would apply to both partic ipating and non-participating Members, were the 
only ones presented and would entail real and signifi cant administrative costs with no equivalent in 
international law.   
24. The EC claimed their fee system to be in the in terest of developing countries.  This was quite 
unfounded, especially in light of the fact that, while  the burden of protecting thousands of registered 
geographical indications from other Members w ould fall on these countries, few of their own 
geographical indications would be eligible for protec tion in third country markets, even if they would 
go on the register.   
25. The European Communities had also mentione d the possibility of delegations optimizing 
existing domestic GI registration systems on the assumption that all other Members had adopted a 
registration system like the EC's, despite the fact th at Article 1.1 of the TRIPS Agreement specifically 
allowed Members to decide how to best implement their obligations.  Indeed, many Members had not 
chosen to implement their GI obligations through a GI registration system.   
26. Finally, there was another cost which would pe rhaps be the highest one associated with the 
EC proposal:  the fact that it would seriously tilt the balance of rights and obligations contained in the 
TRIPS Agreement in favour of GI right holders by  placing new obligations on all Members and at the 
same time taking away some of their existing rights.  This would occur at a time when many Members were still struggling to implement the existing level of obligations in the TRIPS Agreement.  Unlike 
the EC proposal, the joint proposal would establish a truly voluntary system with the lowest cost and 
burdens. 
27. The representative of Argentina
 said, as a general comment, that there was a need to clarify 
that not all costs were covered under the heading "fees and costs" in the EC proposal.  It only referred 
to "declared", "evident" or "international-level" cost s, but not to "domestic" costs.  It was therefore 
important to remember that other features of the proposed system would also entail costs.  For 
example, there were "hidden costs" , i.e. costs the national administrations of Members would have to 
bear at the national level.  The entire system, co mprising the notification and registration phases, and 
if Members were to follow the EC proposal, the r eservation and examination procedures, would entail 
considerable costs at national level.  By contrast, the column of the side-by-side paper (TN/IP/W/12) 
reserved for the joint proposal under this heading was blank.  This was because the joint proposal 
would not result in substantial costs;  they would be borne by the WTO in the same way as other 
notification procedures.    
28. She said that the EC proposal contained elements  that gave rise to many uncertainties.  For 
example, in paragraphs 9.2 and 9.3 there was no estimate on how much would the core budget for this 
administering body would be.  This meant that such  a body would start its work depending on a credit 
which would be only paid back later.   Members needed to dispel this uncertainty and have an estimate 
of the initial budget for such a system before starting its work. 
29. She further asked about the reason for the incl usion of a new element which appeared in 
square brackets in paragraph 9.4, namely th e "renewal of the multilateral registration". 
30. She said the EC was proposing a complex system w ith a "basic fee" and an "individual fee".  
Recalling a previous comment she had made in relati on to paragraph 3.3 of the EC proposal that there 
was no justification for "individual fees", she said that, read in conjunction with that provision, 
paragraph 9.7, which stated that the notification of trademarks was "[f]or information purposes only", 
would in fact be a prerequisite for Members fro m which this notification was being requested.  
Additionally, unlike paragraph 9.7( a), which made express reference to the information referred to in 
paragraph 3.3 the "monitoring" mentioned in paragra ph 9.7(b) was not reflected anywhere else in the TN/IP/M/15 
Page 7 
 
 
EC proposal.  Did this mean that there would be an obligation to present a notification and then an 
additional obligation for the permanent monitoring of  conflicting trademark applications?  She did not 
see how Members would actually implement such an obligation. 
31. As to paragraph 9.8 of the EC proposal, she associated herself with what Australia had said on 
this point.   
32. As to paragraph 9.9, which provided that the WTO Secretariat would calculate the addition of 
the two fees and indicate it to the applicant, she asked how the Secretariat would calculate this 
individual fee.  The designed mechanism would create obligations that were not in the part of the 
proposal dedicated to notifications.  For example,  according to paragraph 3.3 of the EC proposal, 
every time a Member notified a geographical indi cation it also had to present information on 
trademarks, with an advance payment of the fee.   How would the WTO Secretariat calculate the 
individual fees without knowing the costs incurred by Members in the monitoring and searching of trademarks? 
33. The representative of Canada
 said that the following could be among the additional costs 
involved in the EC proposed system:  a fee for lodging a reservation,  examination costs,  costs to the 
government for entering into negotiations, and fees fo r trademark searches for purposes of notification 
of trademark registration, which were normally ca rried out by lawyers or trademark practitioners.  
There would also be other costs for a government to set up a system to deal with the flood of 
applications:  those associated with additional hu man resources and equipmen t and those relating to 
oppositions to notifications and to enforcement.  A dditionally, there would be costs to producers and 
retailers regarding re-branding and costs to right  holders of trademarks  containing geographical 
indications.  For this reason, Canada believed that costs were an important element for consideration 
in these negotiations.  He added that because Canada 's intellectual property office worked on a cost-
recovery basis, most of the costs of the system w ould necessarily be passed on to the applicants.  The 
current cost for a GI application under Canada's  wines and spirits rules was Can$450.  Canada's 
experience indicated that this amount was insuffi cient to cover the costs associated with such 
procedures and this was to be reviewed in the near fu ture.  If Canada were to participate in a system as 
proposed by the EC, there would be for a notified ge ographical indication a Canadian-type of fee for a 
multilateral application, multiplied by any number of  other participating Members.  However, if 
Canada did not participate, it would then not be able  to fix or collect a fee, even though it would still 
have costs involved.  In this regard, he would be  particularly concerned for small producers and SMEs 
that could face costs across the globe, instead of the costs associated with seeki ng to register in just 
one country which was a major market.  To illustrate  the question of the amount of resources needed 
to deal with GI applications, he recalled that in the EC-Canada bilateral negotiations on wines and 
spirits, Canada had been faced with an initial propo sal of 10,000 EC names, later reduced to 1,500.  
Canada was currently dealing with  around 490 applications for geogr aphical indications that were 
submitted roughly at the same time.  If Canada, whic h considered itself as a major developed country 
with significant resources, had been overwhelmed by only 490 applications, how would countries 
with fewer resources deal with thousands or tens of  thousands of similar GI applications, all submitted 
at once?   
34. Unlike the EC proposal, the joint proposal, as had been said by other delegations, put forward 
a voluntary low-cost system.  It would, in fact, onl y carry nominal costs for the administering body to 
cover the maintenance of the system.  Most im portantly, there was no cost to non-participating 
Members and for those participating in the system  there would be little to factor into resource 
considerations.  Additionally, the joint proposal did not require a systematic and costly reviewing of 
all notified geographical indications. TN/IP/M/15 
Page 8  
 
35. The representative of Japan
 said that, as a general principle, the new system should not 
impose undue costs on the WTO Secretariat and Memb ers.  In this regard, the joint proposal 
contained a much better system.  As to "individua l fees", Japan believed that, while the amount of 
each fee could not be high, the aggregate amount of these fees could be, which could make the system 
an expensive one.   
36. The representative of Chinese Taipei  associated her delegation with the interventions made by 
New Zealand, Argentina, Australia, Canada and Jap an.  The system should recognize that intellectual 
property rights were private rights and that Member s benefiting from those rights must bear the costs 
of protecting them.  If registered geographical in dications were to produce legal effects in all 
Members, the burden of enforcing GI rights would sh ift from their right holders to governments.  As a 
result, there would be an increase in administrative costs and a change in the current balance of rights 
and obligations in the TRIPS Agreement. 
37. The representative of Colombia  said that her delegation had seri ous questions with regard to 
the administrative costs, particularly hidden one s, that would have to be borne by domestic 
registration offices.  She asked Hong Kong, China and the European Communities to clarify what 
administrative costs domestic registration offices w ould have to bear as a result of notifications.  
Would there be a difference for participating and non-participating Members in the case of the EC 
proposal?  It would seem that that in the fi rst few years of the system proposed by the 
European Communities there could be a high number of notifications in a short period of time.  So the 
administrative costs per registration, referred to under paragraph 9.2 of the EC proposal, could be 
relatively low.  However, countries with no current ly developed geographical indication system that 
would be interested in registering some geographica l indications in five to ten years would have to 
bear the extensive fixed administrative costs of the system.  So, in the end, the unit cost for a single 
registration would be quite high.  This would create an imbalance between those Members which 
currently had a developed geographical i ndication system and those who did not. 
38. The representative of the European Communities  said that it was true that his delegation was 
proposing a system that was not written into the TR IPS Agreement and that had certain procedural 
steps to be undertaken, which implied some cost s.  That was exactly why the EC had proposed a 
system that allowed for cost recovery.  He observe d that the joint proposal foresaw a system with a 
number of obligations that also implied costs, such as the obligation for courts and administrations at 
the national level to consult the database when  making decisions regarding the protection of 
trademarks and geographical indications for wines a nd sprits.  This was particularly relevant to 
developing countries, which might not have the e quipment for consulting the database that would be 
available on the Internet.  What would be the cost s for developing countries to maintain Internet 
capabilities so as to have access to the last updated li st of geographical indications?  Unlike the EC 
proposal, the joint proposal did not address the question of cost recovery.  It was therefore fair to say 
that all of the proposals on the table involved some costs.  In contrast, what the EC proposal was 
proposing was simply an examination process in wh ich the public administrations would continue 
doing what they were already doing when they  received an application from a local producer. 
39. Responding to the point made by Australia that the EC proposal would not entail any savings 
for GI right holders, he said that that was not true , because, in fact, the greatest current difficulty for 
GI right holders was that if they wanted to obtain protection in all WTO Members they would have to hire lawyers to file applications in each Member.  This made it very difficult to achieve general 
protection, and more importantly, a genuine global tr ade strategy of exports, because right holders did 
not know where they were going to be protected and where they were not.  For that reason his delegation believed that the very fact that a Member would be able to lodge one single application that 
would then become a bundle of applications sent to national offices in other WTO Members was an 
added value. TN/IP/M/15 
Page 9 
 
 
40. On the comments made by Australia and New Z ealand that the EC proposal would entail new 
obligations beyond the mandate and the current standa rds of the TRIPS Agreement, he said that this 
proposal contained procedural obligations that did not change the substantiv e level of protection set 
out in Articles 22 and 23 of the TRIPS Agreement.  The EC proposal could therefore be implemented 
appropriately by existing systems as already pr ovided by the Agreemen t.  For example, the 
Australian Wine and Brandy Corporation, currently  in charge of the protection of geographical 
indications in Australia, had a system that could certainly be suitable for receiving applications from 
the future register.   
41. As to the concern raised by Australia on the cost s associated with bilateral negotiations under 
the EC proposed system, he recalled that Article  24.1 of the TRIPS Agreement already carried the 
obligation to negotiate a bilatera l or multilateral agreement aimed at increasing the protection of 
individual geographical indications.  This obligation related to a protection that was to be facilitated 
by this register.  Since Members were already unde r this obligation, the fact that the EC proposal 
included a mechanism that would trigger these existi ng obligations would not add any extra costs to 
those already incurred by Members.   
42. As to New Zealand's concerns about cost burdens  to a small IP office, he said that in the 
European Communities, which held 80 per cent of the world’s geographical indications, there were 
only eight staff members working on the examination of applications.   The examination was a far 
more complicated process than it would be to process a two-page application that would come via the proposed multilateral system.  The applications proce ssed in Brussels were as thick as ten centimetres.  
So, if the European Communities coul d perform its tasks with only a small staff, he was sure that even 
the New Zealand IP office would be able to cope with the future system.  The same would apply to 
Canada's concern with regard to coping with the fl ood of applications under its bilateral agreement 
with the European Communities.  After noting that in page 17 of the minutes of the Special Session of 16 September 2005 (TN/IP/M/14) the Canadian delega tion had already made the same point, he said 
that it was common knowledge that the European Communities was the Member that was the most 
interested in having an effective system.  If the European Communities were to notify ten or fifteen 
thousand geographical indications at once the system would obviously collapse.  It would therefore be 
ready to exercise self-restraint in many ways.  For example, the proposed registration fee would exert 
restraint in the number of geographical indicatio ns because not all GI right holders would be 
interested in participating in the system.  He further recalled that the European Communities had on 
previous occasions indicated its readiness to nego tiate the possibility of limiting the number of 
geographical indications to be notified annually. 
43. He expressed disagreement with the point made by New Zealand that the EC proposal was not 
an instrument that could be in favour of developing countries.  After ten years from the entry into force of the TRIPS Agreement, the European Co mmunities had received only one application for a 
foreign geographical indication from all over the worl d.  There were not many producers that could go 
on a country-by-country basis to seek for the protec tion of their geographical indications.  The reason 
for this was that most GI users were cooperatives or small producers with limited resources, and not multinational companies which coul d invest huge amounts of money in  national litigation procedures.  
If this held true for European producers, how w ould it be for developing country producers?  His 
delegation held the firm view that the system shoul d serve to materialize the protection that Members 
were currently bound to provide under the TRIPS Agreement and that all countries were supposed to 
put at the disposal of right holders.  The proposed system would be particularly beneficial to 
producers without resources which were more likely to be located in developing than in developed 
countries. TN/IP/M/15 
Page 10  
 
44. As to Argentina's question of whether para graph 9.7(b) of the EC proposal implied 
monitoring of applications for trademarks including geographical indications, he confirmed that there 
would be some monitoring.  This would, however , be against the payment of a fee and should not 
cause problems.  In this context, he said that one  possible way to ensure monitoring would be to 
entrust that task, as indicated for example by Canada in the area of trademarks, to private firms.  Any 
country could put that kind of information at th e disposal of the notifying country via its own 
administration or via a sub-contracted private firm.   
45. As to Argentina's concern about the calculation of fees, he said that the proposed EC system 
was basically inspired by the Madrid Protocol.  The EC draft text had actually used, with minor 
changes, the provisions of the Madrid Protocol. 
46. With regard to Canada's point that non-par ticipating Members would not be entitled to claim 
fees under the EC proposal, he said that its para graph 9.8 clearly referred to "WTO Members", 
meaning both participating and non-participating Members.  
47. As to Japan's concern that the aggregate amount of individual fees would be high, he said that 
the Madrid system of registration of marks was based on a similar mechanism and had proved quite 
successful. 
48. Finally, on the point raised by Colombia on domestic administrative burdens, he said that the 
costs to the national administration of Colombia would be identical to those that it was already 
incurring on the basis of Colombia's existing system , which allowed for the domestic registration of 
geographical indications, such as the recently register ed "Café de Colombia".  He believed that the 
proposed EC system could be fitted into the na tional regulatory framework of Colombia.  For 
instance, it would suffice that the applications were  sent directly to the IP office of Colombia, for 
example by electronic mail from Geneva.  
49. The representative of Hong Kong, China
 said, in relation to the comments made by Colombia, 
that there would not be any direct costs for non- participating Members because there would be no 
legal effects on them.  With regard to indirect costs related to the monitoring of third markets, the 
situation would not be different from the presen t situation where geographical indications were 
protected as certification marks.  Under the TRIPS Agreement, i.e. without the multilateral system, a 
local producer in Hong Kong, China would have to monitor whether there would be certification mark 
applications which could have an impact on his own product and, when  necessary, he would have to 
lodge oppositions with the Hong Kong, China IP  office, in accordance with its domestic legal 
framework.   
50. The representative of Australia  said that the EC proposal was clearly more costly than the 
joint proposal for a whole range of reasons.  One cr ucial difference was the issue of participation.  
Unlike the EC proposal, the joint pr oposal was entirely voluntary.  It was the view of many Members, 
including Members that had not co-sponsored the join t proposal, that participation must be voluntary, 
which meant that there should not be any legal oblig ations for non-participating Members.  As had 
been discussed previously and best expressed by Br azil and the Philippines at the September meeting, 
there was no point in discussing a proposal that would only provide for obligations with no corresponding rights to non-participants, and that would impose undue burdens and costs on developing countries, many of which di d not have any economic interest in participating in the system 
because they had few or no wine or spirit geographi cal indications to protect.  This had just been 
confirmed by the European Communities, who had sai d that 80 per cent of the world’s geographical 
indications were probably European.  Members should therefore focus on those statistics when 
considering the costs and benefits of the various pr oposals.  She asked those delegations who so far 
had not been active in these negotiations and whose views on this particular issue were not clear to 
carefully consider whether they were willing and able to take on the burden inherent in the EC 
proposal.  As had been mentioned by New Zeala nd, non-participating Members would essentially TN/IP/M/15 
Page 11 
 
 
have two alternatives:  either to lodge reservations  and enter into negotiations in order to exercise 
their existing rights to deny protection on the basi s of certain exceptions;  or to protect all EC 
geographical indications by not having been able to decline protection on the grounds laid out in 
paragraphs 3.2(a) to 3.2(c) of the EC proposal.   
51. As to the argument put forward by the European  Communities that their proposal would entail 
cost-saving benefits by helping right holders to enfo rce their rights in different jurisdictions, she asked 
how this would be different from trademarks or pate nts.  She pointed out that the Madrid Protocol, 
which seemed to have been the model used by the European Communities, was a voluntary treaty, 
and that so far there had been no international pate nt register nor progress in the area of harmonization 
of patent law within the framework of WIPO.  
52. She further said that her delegation had problems with the assertion made by the 
European Communities that the Australian Wine an d Brandy Corporation would have no problems 
with undertaking the burdens imposed by the EC proposal.  Firstly, it would be unlikely that every Member of the WTO would have a similar body th at would be in a position to assume the proposed 
obligations.  Secondly, the question was not whethe r the Australian Wine and Brandy Corporation 
would have the capacity to take up the obligations , but whether it should have to do so, and whether 
Australia's existing rights to use the exceptions in Article 24 of the TRIPS Agreement should be 
limited in the way proposed by the European Co mmunities.  According to the proposed system, if 
Australia chose not to participate, lodge reservations  or enter into negotiations, then it would have to 
protect all notified geographical indi cations unless, of course, it would be able to apply Article 24.4  
and 24.5 exceptions, which were not, in any case, the only ones available under the 
TRIPS Agreement. 
53. Finally, on the point that the mandatory nego tiations requirement under the EC proposal had 
already been established by the TRIPS Agreement, she said that, if Members' intentions in the 
Uruguay Round were to increase the protection of individual geographical indications through a 
register of geographical indications for wines and spirits, then both paragraph 4 of Article 23 and 
paragraph 1 of Article 24 of the Agreement would have been placed in the same article. 
54. The representative of the United States
 said that third parties from other WTO Members were 
having difficulties using the current EC GI system  because for some time the European Communities 
had been representing that it was not possible for tho se third parties to file for protection in that 
system unless the other Members had an equivalent system.  It was only after that representation had been changed that the first foreign application me ntioned by the EC representative, namely that from 
Colombia, was eventually filed.   
55. He said that under the US certification mark system a number of third country geographical 
indications had received protection, which was evidence that such a system was a good one.  
Moreover, it was consistent with th e objective set out in the joint pr oposal to facilitate the protection 
for geographical indications.   
56. On the specific issue of fees and costs, his delegation shared the concerns raised by, 
Argentina, Australia, Canada, Colombia, Japan, New Zealand and Chinese Taipei that the EC's 
proposed system was complex, costly, burdenso me and overreaching.  The experience of other 
international IP instruments that had detailed pr oposals on fee systems indicated that these issues 
tended to make negotiations mu ch more difficult and lengthy. 
57. His delegation disagreed with the European Communities' statement that there were no 
benefits under the joint proposal.  The system proposed would certainly meet the mandate by 
facilitating protection through an intern ational database to be consulte d by Members.  This database 
had no parallel in international IP systems and w ould be unprecedented in te rms of interaction and 
transparency.  The European Communities’ objectio n to the joint proposal seemed to come from the TN/IP/M/15 
Page 12  
 
very fact that this proposal could indeed m eet the mandate without imposing new substantive 
obligations and prejudicing any existing rights or obligations under the TRIPS Agreement.  
58. His delegation failed to unders tand how the EC proposal for ma ndatory negotiations could not 
be considered as a new substantive obligation.  Hi s delegation's understanding of Article 24.1 of the 
TRIPS Agreement, described by the EC representative as a current obligation, was that a name had to 
be a geographical indication under Article 22.1 of the Agreement before such provision could be 
invoked.  Unlike Article 24.1 of the Agreement, the European Communities’ proposal for bilateral 
negotiations seemed to cover any objections, including the objection that a name was not a geographical indication in the territory where protection was sought.   
59. The representative of Argentina
 said that the fact that sma ll European producers would have 
to face litigation costs to defend their GI rights coul d not be a valid justification to give unprecedented 
supranational protection only to GI rights through the WTO.  Such producers had the freedom to use or not to use geographical indications just as an y other person had the freedom to protect their 
inventions or creations under various IP rights.  E ach type of protection could bring not only benefits 
but also costs and risks, including litigation cost s in other countries.  European producers would 
choose the protection based on their own commercial interests.  They would generally opt for GI 
protection because they would get immediate benefits , such as subsidies.  The difficulties mentioned 
by the EC delegation could not be compared to tho se to be faced by small producers in developing 
countries, who had other market access difficu lties.  She did not understand why problems 
encountered by European producers in the area of geographical indications should receive a better 
treatment than problems faced by producers of devel oping countries in other IP areas such as patents.  
60. In response to the points made by the Eu ropean Communities on the costs developing 
countries would incur with the monitoring of tr ademarks under the EC proposal, she wondered how 
many of these countries would be able to pay for such services in a developed country.  Under the 
Madrid Protocol each WIPO member had absolute freedom to ratify it or not, a decision which would 
depend on their commercial interests.  The EC's  proposed system, on the contrary, would be 
mandatory for all WTO Members, whatever their inte rests might be in the wines and spirits sectors.  
The Madrid Protocol model that the European Comm unities claimed to have used for its proposed fee 
system was not relevant to the WTO context.  The dynamics of trademarks were completely different 
from the dynamics of geographical indications.  She further said that the Madrid system was administered by WIPO, with 90 per cent of its budget coming from the PCT system.  Although the Lisbon Agreement, which applied to all kinds of geographical indications, did not yield any revenue, 
WIPO could nevertheless continue administering it, thanks to resources from other administered 
agreements, such as the PCT.  She therefore wonde red for how long the supranational administrative 
structure the European Communities was proposing would be sustainable. 
61. The representative of Canada
 said that his delegation would continue to draw on its 
experience of the bilateral negotiations with the European Communities in the area of geographical 
indications for wines and spirits because it consid ered it useful for other Members to have an 
understanding of Canada's experiences in this area. 
62. He further said that under the EC proposed sy stem both participating and non-participating 
Members were going to bear certain significant cost s related to the examination of applications, 
particularly the examination as to whether thes e applications would qualify under the applicable 
exceptions and could be used in the reservation process during the 18-month period.  Whether these 
would be the current exceptions under the TRIPS Agre ement or the exceptions as modified by the EC 
proposal was a point to clarify.  TN/IP/M/15 
Page 13 
 
 
63. The representative of Colombia  said that unfortunately the reply from the 
European Communities was not speci fic enough and that her question did not relate to the Colombian 
system for registering geographical indications.  Wh at were the administrative costs that would be 
incurred under paragraph 9 of the EC proposal, both fo r participating and non-pa rticipating Members?  
Would these costs be different for partic ipating and non-participating Members? 
64. The representative of Japan  said that, contrary to what the European Communities were 
saying, the Madrid Protocol system and the propo sed EC system were quite different.  While the 
Madrid system had a limited number of Members, the proposed EC system would be binding upon all 
WTO Members. 
65. The representative of New Zealand  took issue with the statement of the 
European Communities, claiming that the joint pro posal also set out new legal effects that would 
result in costly and significant new burdens.  While she agreed that the joint proposal indeed provided 
for each participating Member to be required to consult the database, this was only because Members 
were mandated to negotiate a system that would fa cilitate the protection of geographical indications 
for wines and spirits.  It was precisely to give eff ect to that mandate that the joint proposal provided 
for a simple examination process in which national offices had to consult a database of geographical 
indications.  The proposed system stood in contr ast to the complex and multifaceted approach 
proposed by the European Communities and other proposals on the table. 
66. She also took issue with the European Communities' challenge  to her delegation's comments 
with regard to the extent of the new substantive ob ligations implied by the proposed EC system.  The 
European Communities had said that under their pr oposal there would not be any change to the 
current level of protection provided for under Ar ticles 22 and 23 of the TRIPS Agreement.  The 
European Communities had, however, entirely failed to mention Article 24, which provided a balance 
to the protection provided in Articles 22 and 23.  In fact, under the EC proposal most of the 
flexibilities of Article 24 would entirely evapor ate after 18 months, unless the Member had the 
resources and capacity to monitor and make reservations. 
67. As to the point about the size of the New Zeal and IP office as compared with the EC office 
and the suggestion that New Zealand's office would have no problem monitoring geographical 
indications, she said that this conclusion presu med an office that was dedicated entirely to 
geographical indications.  The number of people work ing only with geographical indications in the 
European Communities was in fact equivalent to just  less than half of New Zealand's entire IP office 
staff working with all other forms of intellectual property rights, most of which existed in greater 
numbers than geographical indications.  New Zeal and had no intention of establishing a dedicated 
office for geographical indications and wondered how  many other Members would be interested in 
establishing such a specialized office.  
68. She said that it was a fact that most geographical indications in the world were European, a 
point that the European Communities itself would not challenge.  Therefore, it went without saying 
that the majority of benefits of these negotiations  would accrue to the European Communities.  Since 
these geographical indications were already prot ected within the European Communities and the 
additional protection being sought was therefore outsi de the European Communities, most of the costs 
would, in fact, accrue to Members other than th ose from the European Comm unities.  Moreover, for 
the one or two geographical indications that other Members would wish to put on the register, there 
were no assurances that they would be protected in third country markets. 
69. She welcomed the efforts of the Hong Kong, China delegation to spell out the costs of the 
system it was proposing, particularly its assuran ces that there would not be any new burdens, as 
indicated in Annex B of the proposal.  She regretted,  however, that the estimation of costs provided in 
Annex B only dealt with a small portion of the real costs that were being discussed.  In fact, it was clear from the discussions that the type of costs that Members were concerned about went well TN/IP/M/15 
Page 14  
 
beyond those that were set out in Annex B and included, inter alia , additional costs to national 
systems, consumers and producers. 
70. Finally, like Canada, she thought that it was clear from the discussions that among all the 
proposals on the table, the joint proposal was the one containing the lowest costs and least 
burdensome option.  Most importantly, the joint proposal contained a system which involved 
absolutely no costs for non-participating Memb ers, reflecting its truly voluntary character. 
71. The representative of the European Communities
 said, in response to Australia, that in fact he 
had never suggested that the joint proposal was the most costly propo sal.  What he was trying to say 
was that he was not sure about the cost implications  of the joint proposal.  He therefore wished to 
know how much it would cost for national administrati ons to implement the legal effects attached to 
the joint proposal.  How much would it cost, for ex ample, for Australian tribunals and administration 
to look into a database every time they made a d ecision on geographical indications and trademarks? 
72. As to a point made by Australia with regard to  the percentage of EC geographical indications, 
he said that in fact the estimate of 80 per cent he had given at a previous meeting might require some 
correction.  The fact that Australia alone had currently approximately 300 geographical indications 
was an indication that that estimate had to be updated.  More importantly, GI protection was a 
dynamic process and countries that presently were ju st discovering geographical indications could in 
the future wish to protect their own geographical  indications.  He recalled that in a symposium 
organized in June 2005 by WIPO in Parma, Italy, the representative of Austra lia had referred to an 
example given by an Indian representative according to which India would have more than 100 geographical indications for "saris" al one.  Therefore, the issue of the number of 
geographical indications would evolve in the futu re and hence be of relative relevance to these 
negotiations.   
73. On the cost implications of bilateral negotiations  in case of reservations, he recalled that what 
the TRIPS Agreement simply provided for was an obligation for a Member to negotiate if so 
requested by another Member. This did not necessarily mean that there would be extra costs.  It was 
just a question of willingness and of agreeing on the modalities. 
74. He said that the question of why a Member should protect a geographical indication if it did 
not wish to participate in the system was, to a large extent, hypothetical for countries like Australia, 
which was already protecting, on the basis of a bila teral agreement, EC geogr aphical indications for 
wines, which formed the greater part of EC geographical indications.  In any event, the European Communities believed the system should be  a WTO multilateral system in accordance with 
the mandate, and that Members were not having in the Special Session of the Council for TRIPS a 
discussion about geographical indications in gene ral but one on how they should implement this 
mandate. 
75. On the bilateral negotiations foreseen under pa ragraph 3.2-3.4 of the EC proposal, he said 
that, while he agreed with Australia that Artic les 24.1 and 23.4 of the TRIPS Agreement were 
different provisions, he also saw nothing in the la tter that excluded the former from the section on 
geographical indications, which set out the entire sta ndard of protection for geographical indications.  
The protection that an individual geographical indication received in a third country was a 
combination of Articles 22 and 23 of the TRIPS Ag reement, which could, at the same time, be 
nullified by one of the provisions on exceptions under Article 24.  Therefore, it was the entire 
operation of Section 3 of Part II of the TRIPS Ag reement which should be facilitated and, to the 
extent that Article 23.1 was an integral part of that Section, there was nothing indicating that this 
provision should not be included in the EC proposal. TN/IP/M/15 
Page 15 
 
 
76. In response to a comment made by the representative of the United States on "Colombian 
Coffee", he said that, following the circulation of  the WTO dispute settlement reports involving the 
EC Regulation on geographical indications for foodstuffs, the European Communities was in the 
process of clarifying certain aspects of the regulation,  in particular those related to reciprocity.  The 
fact that this recent third country application had b een applied under the current system showed that it 
was capable of receiving third country geographical indications.  He added that Colombia had only 
recently applied for "Colombian Coffee" in the Eu ropean Communities simply  because this name had 
only been recently registered in Colombia. 
77. As to the argument raised by Argentina that  there was no justification for having a WTO 
registration system for geographical indications and not for other intellectual property rights, he said 
that Members were in a negotiating arena which followed a mandate included in the 
TRIPS Agreement and in the Doha Ministerial Decl aration.  This was therefore a political issue, 
which was hard to explain from a logical perspect ive.  He nevertheless took note of this argument 
about differences not being justified, which was a poi nt his delegation had raised in relation to GI 
extension and in WIPO, where hi s delegation had been advocating that the agenda item of domain 
name arbitration rules also address geographical indications. 
78. He refuted the comment made by Argentina th at EC producers who registered geographical 
indications automatically received subsidies.  Ther e was certainly not any such mechanism that would 
provide for a subsidy to be given the moment a producer registered a geographical indication. 
79. As to Canada's reference to Article 9.4 of the EC proposal, he said that, indeed, it referred to 
participating Members as opposed to WTO Members.   This provision simply enabled WTO Members 
to charge to their own producers whatever it would co st them to participate and to notify and register 
an individual geographical indication.  As in the EC proposal only participating Members could notify 
geographical indications and charge their producers fo r the geographical indications they wished to be 
notified in the system, only participating Members had been mentioned in this provision.  This did not 
mean, however, that this provision prohibited the possibility for any other WTO Member to indicate 
the costs for it being involved in the system and to  recover them at a later stage after the notification 
of the geographical indication. 
80. As regards Colombia's question on administrative costs incurred by virtue of the operation of 
the proposed EC system, he said that this would depend on how this system was implemented in each 
WTO Member.  In any case, there would be a first t ask, which was to receive the notification and, if 
necessary, translate it.   Colombia would not have  translation costs since Spanish was one of the 
official languages of the WTO.  Once the notificati on had been received, the examination procedure, 
which varied in each country, would begin.  While some countries would make a substantive 
examination with opposition procedures, others wo uld not.  He did not know exactly how the 
Colombian system worked, but there would certainly  be some costs associated  with this process.  
Once this examination process had been completed, if as a result of it there was still some doubt or a 
problem regarding the possibility of registering th is geographical indication in Colombia, then the 
Colombian authorities would send a note to the WTO Secretariat informing the WTO that it wanted to 
lodge a reservation regarding this geographical indication in Colombia .  In its reservation, Colombia 
could indicate, for example, evidence of gene ricness of that name, non-compliance with the 
Article 22.1 definition of a GI, or any other additi onal information, so that the notifying Member 
would be aware of the problem.  The process of ex amination would be identical both for participating 
and non-participating Members, the only differen ce being the legal effects which would arise at 
national level.  These legal effects at the nationa l level were, however, presumptions that would be 
invoked by the GI right holder himself, before the administration, trademark office or court, and there 
would not be an obligation to require the administra tion to raise them ex officio.  This was why these 
legal effects would not involve excessive administrative costs. TN/IP/M/15 
Page 16  
 
81. As to Japan's argument that comparing the Madr id Protocol with the proposed EC system was 
not useful because the Madrid system had a more limited membership, while he agreed that the WTO 
multilateral system to be established would invo lve the WTO membership, which had 149 Members, 
the fact that LDC Members would not be affected meant that in fact only some 110 Members would be concerned by the EC proposed system, onl y around 30 more than the Madrid Protocol.  
82. Finally, on the question of the size of New Zeal and’s IP office, he said that the relative size 
and number of geographical indications of New Zealand compared to the European Communities 
justified the fact that the European Communities designated eight people to deal exclusively with 
geographical indications.  The important issue unde r this discussion was, however, not so much the 
numbers but the fact that when a country acted on a fee recovery basis it did not really matter how 
many geographical indications it had, because it would be able to make applicants pay for them and 
with that payment finance the costs of its IP office, and even enlarge its personnel. 
83. On New Zealand's comment that under the EC proposal all exceptions would no longer be 
available after 18 months, he said that this was not correct.  Genericness was one exception that could be raised during the 18-month period, which w as a long time-limit, while other exceptions under 
Article 24 of the TRIPS Agreement, such as prior trademarks, grandfathered use, use of personal 
names, would continue to be available.  
84. The representative of Chile
 took issue with the statement from the European Communities 
that the joint proposal would entail high costs for Members' administrations and courts, because under 
such a proposal what they would have to do was simp ly to consult the database when taking decisions 
on geographical indications and trad emarks.  This system would truly facilitate the work of the few 
courts or administrative agencies involved, and woul d not therefore be costly.  In contrast, under the 
EC proposal, Members would have to engage in ma ndatory bilateral negotiati ons, an obligation that 
did not exist in either the TRIPS Agreement or in  the Madrid system and which would entail high 
costs. 
85. The representative of Australia  said that under the joint proposal there would be absolutely no 
cost to non-participating Members, which meant that those Members who did not produce wines and 
spirits or did not have anything to gain from this sy stem would not have to bear costs.  The costs of 
the joint proposal for participating Members, on the other hand, would vary, as Article 1.1 of the 
TRIPS Agreement would give Members the freed om to determine the appropriate way of 
implementing this proposal within their own legal system and practice.  Under Australian law, for 
example, decisions regarding the registration and protection of tradem arks and geographical 
indications for wines and spirits were made by tw o bodies, namely IP Australia, responsible for the 
administration of Australia's Trademarks Act, and the Australian Wine and Brandy Corporation 
(AWBC), which administered the AWBC Act.  Th ese bodies would be able to implement the joint 
proposal in a simple way, namely through the regula tions to the already existing legislation with no 
need to neither change substantive law nor employ  new staff.  Most importantly, there would be no 
need to review the register, lodge reservations or en ter into negotiations on behalf of every interested 
party in Australia that might be affected by the re gistration of a foreign geographical indication.  This 
was significantly different from the EC proposal, wh ich had legal effects both in participating and 
non-participating Members and w ould consequently pose serious burdens on those Members who 
themselves were not benefiting from the system.   
86. The representative of the European Communities  said that under the EC proposal non-
participating Members would in the end also bear no  costs because they would be fully recoverable.  
He further asked the delegations who had stated that the EC proposal would be more costly than theirs 
to come up with figures in order to be more credible.   TN/IP/M/15 
Page 17 
 
 
87. The representative of the United States  said that for Article 24.1 to be applicable, a name had 
first to be considered a geographical indication in  the country where protection was sought.  If that 
country had made a reservation on the grounds that th e name was not a geographical indication, then 
the linkage with Article 24.1 would raise concerns that the balance of obligations and rights under the 
TRIPS Agreement would be changed. 
88. On the point made by the delegate of th e European Communities on the costs of both 
proposals, he said that the aim of the joint proposal  was only to facilitate protection in an effective 
manner while at the same time being neutral as to rights and obligations under the TRIPS Agreement.  
It would consequently result in very low costs fo r the administrative agencies that would have to 
implement the proposal at a national level.  More specifically, there would truly not be any additional 
costs in setting up a system because it would be suffi cient to use existing systems, with the current 
ordinary costs of applying relevant information in  accordance with the domestic laws of participating 
Members.  This was not to say that the joint proposal would not also carry some minimal costs in establishing the database at the international level.  The EC proposal, on the other hand, would result 
in great burdens and costs associated with the need  to modify Members' existing systems and retrain 
personnel, as well as costs associated with the incr eased challenge costs for interested parties. 
89. The representative of Argentina
 said the proposal made by the EC that the WTO's budget 
initially cover the costs and be reimbursed implied that  the EC had already made some calculations.   
The argument that under the proposed EC system it would be possible to recoup all the costs was not 
a valid one.  Argentina did not want to incur any additional costs.  The WTO had other examples of 
notifications systems, such as under the SPS Agreemen t, which did not involve major costs.  There 
was therefore no reason why the notification system for GIs for wines and spirits should cost more.  
Argentina was still in the initial stage of setting up a register of geographical indications, which had 
already resulted in high costs for its national ad ministration.  Hence, it was unthinkable for 
Argentina's Government to extend this current incipi ent system to a universal system of reviewing a 
massive number of GI notifications.  The elabor ate system proposed by the European Communities 
merely responded to the structure of protection whic h had been prevalent in the EU member States for 
many years.  These member States benefited from ad ministrative structures, both at Community and 
national levels, which was far beyond what Argentina had. 
 - Review;  contact point;  administering body/other bodies;  date of entry into operation. 
 
90. The representative of the European Communities  said that the functioning of the system 
entailed two kinds of tasks, namely norm-se tting tasks and administrative tasks.  The 
European Communities believed that the multilatera l register should be a WTO instrument and 
therefore there must be a body setting the different administrative rules that would allow the system to 
function.  The body would probably be the TRIPS Council and therefore all the administrative rules 
that would be required should be agreed by all WTO Members.  However, as for the day-to-day 
management of the system, such as receiving the a pplications and translating them, his delegation was 
open as to the body which could perform such a task.  It could be the WTO Secretariat, but could also 
be carried out by any other bodies that had expertise in the area of intellectual property, in particular 
the World Intellectual Property Organization. 
91. The representative of Canada , supported by the representatives of Australia  and the 
United States ,  expressed concerns regarding the second sentence of the review provision under 
Section F of the Hong Kong, China proposal, which stated that "[i]n particular, the question of scope 
of participation should be revisited as part of the review".  This could call into question the voluntary 
nature of the system.  In that light, he reminded Members that their mandate under Article 23.4 of the 
TRIPS Agreement was to negotiate a system that  would facilitate the protection of geographical 
indications for wines and spirits eligible for pr otection "in those Members participating in the 
system". TN/IP/M/15 
Page 18  
 
92. The representative of Hong Kong, China
 drew Members' attention to paragraph 59 of the 
minutes of the September meeting (TN/IP/M/14), where his delegation explained the objective of the review mechanism under Section F of its proposal.  Hi s delegation was conscious of the fact that the 
issue of participation was important to the debate , but it was also unlikely that Members would reach 
a consensus on it in the near future. This was th e reason why, under his delegation's proposal, the 
suggestion of having a review a number of years af ter the setting up of the system was introduced.  
Such a review was, however, not just on the issue of participation.  It was meant to take into account 
the actual experience of operating the system to see wh ere the system could be further improved.  In 
this context, participation could be one of th e issues that could be addressed under the review. 
93. The representative of Australia
 said that, although it was premature to start discussions on the 
administering body, his delegation could see the TR IPS Council playing a role in this regard, which 
did not mean that it would not also be open to look ing into other organizations , such as WIPO.  In any 
case, under the joint proposal an onerous commitme nt would not be placed on any administering 
body. 
94. The representative of Switzerland  said that the administering body should be an intermediary 
between Members in the administration of the syst em.  Its tasks should therefore be to receive 
notifications and reservations by a Member, send them  to all other Members or publish them online or 
in any other form that was decided.  Another important task of the administering body should be, as suggested by Hong Kong, China, to carry out a formal  examination of notifications to ensure that the 
requirements defined by Members would be fulfille d.  The administering body should not, however, 
decide whether a notification would be valid on Me mbers' territories.  This would be the sole 
competence of each Member, which would continue to have the full compet ence to make such a 
determination at the national level and uphold its international obligati ons.  The formal examination to 
be carried out by the administering body would, however, serve to alleviate the workload of Members.  The administering body should manage the system on a daily basis and regularly update the information contained in the register to take  account of new notifications, modifications and 
withdrawals or removals of geographical indicati ons, and communicate this information to Members. 
95. Finally, she said that it was important to decide who would serve as the administering body.  
It could be the WTO Secretariat or another intern ational organization with the capacity and expertise 
to carry out such work, such as the International Bureau of WIPO, which has the expertise of 
administering the Madrid Protocol and the Lisbon Agreement.  Her delegation was open to possible 
proposals along these lines, as Hong Kong, China had s uggested in its proposal on page 23 of the 
Secretariat's side-by-side document, TN/IP/W/12. 
96. The representative of the European Communities
 said that one of the key elements of the 
mandate was the term "multilateral"  which, in the WTO terminology,  called for participation of all 
WTO Members.  This was one of the cornerstones of the WTO system.  This was not just a formalistic question but an issue that the previous Chair had described as one that would be, at the end 
of the day, relevant to determining the value that Members attached to this particular instrument on 
the negotiating table.  It was therefore clear that a multilateral register with one or two Members only 
and another that covered the whole or most of wo rld trade, would not have the same value.  He 
expressed concern that some delegations seemed to have an approach to the negotiations in this 
Special Session that was different from those in Agriculture or NAMA, namely to negotiate an 
instrument and thereafter be able to decide to join the outcome. 
97. The representative of Chile
 asked the European Communities how they would interpret the 
phrase "Members participating in the system" in Article 23.1 of the TRIPS Agreement. TN/IP/M/15 
Page 19 
 
 
98. The representative of the European Communities  said that there was in fact a tension between 
the word "multilateral" and the notion of "Members pa rticipating in the system".  This was the very 
reason why the EC proposal attempted to give meaning to these two aspects by proposing two 
different sets of legal obligations  for participating and non-particip ating Members.  This type of 
interpretation arose from the notion that the TRI PS Agreement in itself was built upon the idea that 
WTO Members must offer mechanisms of protection to other nationals' inte llectual property rights, 
including geographical indications, whether or not they had any IPR to benefit from protection in 
other Members.  Therefore, the word "multilateral" could not mean anything but that all WTO Members that had to facilitate protection of geographi cal indications and apply Section 3 of Part II of 
the TRIPS Agreement should be, in one way or anot her, involved in the system, some having lesser 
obligations than others. 
99. The representative of the United States
 said that the mandate under which Members were 
working envisioned a purely voluntary system and that  any other interpretation of this mandate would 
deprive the words "those Members participati ng in the system" in Article 23.4 of the 
TRIPS Agreement of its meaning. 
100. With respect to the administering body, he said that his delegation would not have any strong 
preference as to which body should have such re sponsibility.  It would be, however, premature to 
decide on this issue at this stage of the negotiati ons.  In any case, under the joint proposal, which put 
forward a system that was easy to administer, the implementation could be carried out in a similar 
manner to how it was currently done by the WTO Secr etariat in administering the Central Registry of 
Notifications.  Therefore, the joint proposal would be more inclined to having the WTO Secretariat do 
this work because of the low ove rheads of the system proposed. 
101. The representative of Argentina  associated her delegation with the view expressed by 
Australia, Canada and the United States that the mandate under Article 23.4 of the TRIPS Agreement 
instructed the negotiation of a voluntary system.  Sh e said that the European Communities' attempt to 
accommodate the word "multilateral" and the notion of "Members participating in the system" by 
explaining that under its proposal fewer legal effect s would be given with re gard to non-participating 
Members showed how difficult it was to reconc ile what was given under Article 23.4 of the 
Agreement with the EC proposal.  In fact, what the EC proposal was doing was to assimilate the 
concept of "participation" with that of "notifica tion" by saying that a non-participant was a Member 
which did not notify.  This was not the understandi ng of the joint proposal group, according to which 
only those who participate would notify since throu gh this voluntary act they gave their consent to 
certain rights and obligations.  She disagreed with the European Communities that the notion that all 
Members should participate emerged from the concep t that WTO Members had the general obligation 
to protect the intellectual property rights of othe r Members' nationals.  This was contradicted by 
Article 23 of the TRIPS Agreement, which containe d no strong obligation to afford protection and 
only stated that each Member should provide the lega l means for interested parties to prevent certain 
uses of geographical indications.  So, it was obvi ous that the differences of positions in this 
Special Session resided not only in relation to the mandate under 23.4 of the Agreement, but also in relation to what the TRIPS Agreement provide d in the GI area.  Therefore, what the 
European Communities was seeking was not provid ed under the TRIPS Agreement, namely direct 
protection. 
102. The representative of Australia
 recalled that a recent WTO panel decision had determined that 
the European Communities had not b een respecting the national treatme nt principle in the area of 
geographical indications for foodstuffs, and that they  had a certain time-limit to implement the panel 
ruling.  As long as the ruling had not been implemented, her delegation was of the view that any statement by the European Communities on the obliga tion for a Member to protect IPRs of nationals 
of other Members could not be taken seriously. TN/IP/M/15 
Page 20  
 
103. The representative of th e European Communities
 agreed with the representative of Argentina 
that the TRIPS Agreement did not require direct protection and that such protection should not be derived from the proposed EC multilateral register.  Although the proposal provided for a system of 
presumptions, such presumptions would have to be  asserted by the right-holders themselves, not 
directly by the administrations of the third countri es concerned.  He would therefore correct his earlier 
point and say that Members had the obligation to prov ide legal means to interested parties to impede 
misuses of geographical indication. 
104. With regard to the Australian comment on the panel ruling, he regretted that "Café de 
Colombia" had not been applied for registration in  the European Union earlier because it would have 
clearly shown that the EC system had always a llowed registration of third countries' geographical 
indications.  
C. O
THER ISSUES  
105. The Chairman  said that he would hold consultations on the draft report he would have to 
make to the TNC.  He further indicated that  for 2006 three formal meetings were planned 
back-to-back with the meetings of the regular sessi on of the Council for TRIPS:  16-17 March, 12-13 
June, and 27 October. 
_________